AAR Explained
Whether your organisations’ purpose is to deliver safe effective patient care, or achieve a thriving and profitable business, AAR will improve performance at the individual, team and organisational level, because it harnesses the learning that is taking place every day and accelerates the transfer of knowledge through the organisation.
“Teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. This is where the “rubber stamp meets the road”; unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn”. Peter Senge
The iTS AAR context
The value of improving performance using the After Action Review approach has been brought to life in Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed and The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. System Engineer Peter Senge calls AAR “arguably the most successful organisational learning method yet devised” We know it is being widely used in a variety of successful USA companies and it is supporting several European businesses to learn through the changes brought on by unplanned events like the pandemic and through planned and strategic initiatives. It is now one of the approaches recommended by NHS England to deliver improvements in patient safety because it generates learning to where it matters most – with those who do the caring.
The heart of After Action Review
At the heart of the iTS AAR model of After Action Review is the opportunity for a group of people to learn from recent shared events and build understanding from the individual experiences into a collective picture of what was expected and what actually happened.
Central to the success of every iTS AAR is the “AAR Conductor” who facilitates the process and helps participants to make sense of what they’ve heard and draw out their own lessons. The final stage is deciding on what needs to happen with those lessons and the changes that might be needed as a result of them. Our iTS AAR Conductor Development training equips people with the skills and knowledge to facilitate these honest conversations and ask the questions that bring clarity to the issues and the solutions.
The keystone effect on safety and performance
Keystone species are those which have an extremely high impact on a particular ecosystem relative to its population and are critical for the overall structure and function of an ecosystem. iTS AAR is the keystone for organisational transformation & learning which positively enhances all the key elements of successful performance at the individual, team and organisational level.
With AAR embedded at the centre of the organisation, the whole ecosystem evolves to be an inclusive and curious organisation that moves easily towards problems as people know that this is where the solutions and exciting new ideas lie. Like the yellow lines on the road at the exit from a motorway, the AAR prompts people to do the right thing: to slow down and create a shared mental model of the problem and decide on solutions together. .
From our clients
“Our experience is that AAR is simple and easy to use. It’s not only an improvement tool but one that has a major effect on the relationships and culture of a team. These two things make it infectious and just like that famous snack “once you pop, you can’t stop” which makes it sustainable too.”
Let’s start something new!
Get in touch with us today and take the first steps to transforming your business.